Illumination
by Diva-esque
Summary: What do you do when your best just isn't good enough? What do you do when you're Iijima Ryu?


**Illumination**

by Aishuu

Disclaimer: Hotta and Obata.

* * *

When Shindou Hikaru passed me by, I knew it was time to quit.

I've always had a talent for Go, and I loved the game. There was something about the patterns the stones formed on the board, watching it take shape that I fascinated me. It was logical, and I could see it emerging beneath my fingertips. There was a thrill to knowing I created the mosaic, and with my opponent, I could create a shape that would declare me superior.

I began playing I was six. It wasn't particularly because I enjoyed the game, but because my father adored it. My father had been an insei in his day, but he had never quite been good enough. There is a difference between someone who is "quite good" and someone who is exceptional.

I learned that the hard way.

From the beginning, I was better than my father had ever been. I was strong, strong enough to win the Young Meijin Tournament at nine, and then become an insei at eleven. Go became my world, and I learned to love it. It made sense in a crazy world, something I could control. I may have lost games occasionally, but at least I could accept the blame for my own actions.

Becoming an insei was a natural step. I could see the road before me; I would spend a few years honing my skills, then past the pro exams. I knew better than to dream of taking a title, since I recognized that I didn't have the sheer genius of the true masters, but I was better than most. I could see myself becoming a 6 or 7-dan and making a comfortable living. I was a realist - I would never be a player of legend.

I clawed my way through the second class, defeating some of my opponents but taking losses as well. The students were more talented than the old men I had played in the salons, and it was hard to earn a place. I bounced around the top ten slots, not quite managing to enter the first class, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Shinoda-sensei never discouraged me, the way he did other insei who would never amount to anything, so I continued to plod along.

At fourteen I was moved into the first class.

Entering it was like plunging into a bath filled with ice-cold water, because wins were fought for with a tenacity that was frightening. Still, I made friends. That year, a girl named Nase Asumi joined the classes. She wasn't as good as I was, but she shared the same dogged determination I possessed and I liked her.

Nase knew how to laugh, and while she was as serious as I was while playing, she had the ability to live outside of Go, something I has never had learned how to do. She was a teenager and knew how to enjoy life, and I was a geek. Being around her made me nervous, but I camouflaged this by discussing the one thing we had in common: Go. But Go was the central focus in our lives, so that was okay. We would laugh, and she would listen to me. It was nice to have the attention of a pretty girl.

I didn't qualify for the pro exam until I was fifteen. I had taken the qualifiers each year, and each year I had been unable to achieve the requisite three wins. It was frustrating, but I think a small part of me was relieved. I would have more time to prepare, more time to get stronger before I entered the world of the pros.

Still, the actual pro exam was another shock to my system. I had known it would be an arduous road, but I hadn't realized what it would be like. That year, 29 people had made it through the preliminaries, and I watched with curious eyes as outsiders verging on thirty played with a desperation that frightened me. They were not good enough, I knew. They were strong, stronger than most players, but they did not have that "certain something" that would elevate them into the world of the pros. After I defeated a few of them, I almost felt bad. But only almost. I suffered more losses than I was comfortable with, too nervous at the pressure to play my best.

I finished with eleven wins. My father didn't speak to me for nearly two weeks.

That was the year Isumi entered our class, and I knew that he would inevitably pass before I would. Even though he was a year older than I was, he flew through the levels, unhindered by the fact that he was starting late. Isumi had a brilliance about him, and his game was deceptively forward. I played him methodically, trying and trying to get a win, but he always overcame me, seeing through my mathematical precision with a sheer insight I couldn't match.

Some will rise to the top, always.

But Isumi added a dimension to our class which had been lacking. He seemed to blunt the competition and calm the troubles, simply with his calm presence. He didn't lack the will to win - no, he had the same goal as the rest of us - he just had a humanity that sometimes the top players forgot about. When he claimed the top spot, the dynamics changed, and though we remained just as strong, we seemed to become more willing to support each other, because he led us.

The only one who didn't like Isumi was Mashiba. Mashiba was hard to like, and it would be just like him not to like Isumi. Mashiba was an insect, determined to blight what was pure, and Isumi's quiet radiance was just that.

For some reason, he tried to recruit me as an ally.

It was about six months after Isumi had entered, and I had just lost again to him. Mashiba waited for Isumi to rise to record his win before making his way over to me. We had cleared the board after discussing it, but I was still reviewing the game in my head, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong.

Mashiba came over, smiling at me. There was something about it that was unpleasant, but I was still lost in thoughts of Go. "It's annoying, isn't it?" he said to me. He sank down across from me, leaning forward to stare at the empty goban. "Sometimes you just really want to see some people shaken up..."

I wasn't really paying attention to Mashiba. "Hmmm..."

"You're pretty good, Iijima-kun. I bet you'll be one of the top qualifiers this year."

That grabbed my attention. I wavered in the top ranks constantly, and for him to say that to me was flattering, but made my suspicions rise.

He wanted something.

"Thanks," I said cautiously. He was lying through his teeth; I was barely holding onto the twelfth place.

"You know, some people seem to always be coming in first, though. Isn't it a bit unfair?"

I just looked at him, waiting for more information.

"Well, sometimes I think it would be fun to see them shaken, don't you? You're good at watching people... I bet you know what shakes a lot of people up."

It came to me then. Mashiba wanted me to let him know what I thought Isumi's weakness was. I knew, of course. Isumi was bright and talented, but he was too nice for his own good. He played games more gently than he should have, often times only winning by a few moku when he should have forced them to resign through sheer domination.

I wasn't about to tell Mashiba that, though. "What shakes you up is losing. You lose once, and you fall into a slump," I told him. Partially true; Mashiba was also an amazing egotist, which could be taken advantage of... if I became strong enough.

Mashiba turned beat red, rose to his feet, and stomped off. I watched him go, knowing I had just made an enemy.

"What was that about?" Nase said, coming up to take the place where Mashiba had just sat.

"Nothing," I told her.

"IIijima..." she said, and the warning was implied. I had better tell her, or else.

"He wanted to pick my brain about Isumi," I said, heaving a bit of a sigh. Denying Nase when she wanted something was an impossible task.

Nase frowned at that, obviously not approving. "Did you tell him anything?"

"Of course not," I said. "He's a rival, and I'm not going to help him take down another Go player," I let her know.

She laughed. "Like Mashiba can beat Isumi!"

I smiled at her and agreed, but I wondered. Isumi was too kind, and that kindness made him vulnerable to people like Mashiba, who were utterly ruthless.

Not long after we faced the insei exams again, and I finally understood what genius was.

That was the year Touya Akira took the exams, and the way he blew through them was almost insulting. He missed the very first day, but seemed utterly unconcerned at taking the loss. I played him in the seventh game, and he totally dominating, obliterating anything I tried with ease.

That morning, I was nervous. I had won three games, but lost three as well. I knew I couldn't afford to drop many more, but facing Touya was almost a guaranteed loss. It was something I wasn't looking forward to... but in a weird way, I wanted to play him. If nothing else, I would be able to see for myself what made the much-vaunted Meijin's son so special.

It was raining outside that day, not so unusual, but it seemed like a portent. The foul weather seem to match my luck - he won black, and statistical probabilities indicate black wins more often that white, even with komi.

My luck did not change from there.

I studied him after he placed the first move on the upper left star, amazed at his composure. I had decided to begin with a basic fuseki, something I could do in my sleep. I wanted to have a good influence on the board, knowing that if I didn't, I would have to play aggressively, and that Touya Akira would probably block me at every turn.

It was short, too short. He only waited for us to get twenty hands into the game before he began to attack my shape. I wasn't expecting it so soon.

Touya's face was intent as he took the upper left with a well-played hand. I fought valiantly to keep him from encroaching on the right side, but he easily cut through my weak attempts at making eyes as though he was swatting aside a fly.

Sixty hands into the game, I knew I was going to lose, and lose badly. My shape was poor, and his was beautiful. I hadn't played terribly, but he had played on a plane far beyond anything I could hope to grasp.

"I resign," I told him, bowing my head as I tried to swallow the bile in my throat.

"Thanks for the game," he replied.

I wonder if he meant it. I hadn't even challenged him. As I watched him rise to record the win, I stared at my hands, realizing that this year, I would not be passing the pro exams.

Playing Touya is why I think Isumi failed the pro exams that year. It was the tenth game when they met, and Isumi was still unbeaten - and then they played.

He broke.

Touya forced him to resign, and while I know that Isumi was probably intellectually prepared for the loss, it was hard for him emotionally to be pulverized by a boy who was twelve years old. Isumi didn't have that time to recover - in the eleventh game, he played the other strong outsider, while the thirteenth was Mashiba.

There are some hurdles that are placed before us, as players, and some people use those to get stronger. Shindou and Waya are like that; Isumi is not. He needs space to curl up and lick his wounds before he can grow.

Isumi just wasn't able to put his losses behind him, and after losing against Mashiba, he completely fell apart. He finished with a respectable twenty wins and six losses, but he should have done much better. Maybe he was realizing the same thing I was - that some people simply shine far brighter than we can ever hope to.

We went back to classes, and all seemed to return to normal. Without Mashiba's presence, things seemed calmer, but I still wasn't playing my best. I was losing games I shouldn't, and it was starting to threaten my position as a member of the first class.

I knew it was because I was trying to do too much. Cram school, on top of Go, was taking up amazing amounts of time, and I was sleeping barely five hours a night. In my mind, a vague shadow of doubt was beginning to form - what would happen to me if I never passed the pro exam?

And then Shindou Hikaru entered our lives - and he didn't do so quietly.

Shindou is a very strange child, and that's saying something when you consider I spend my time hanging around people whose passion is a board game. He was loud and brash, and he wasn't cowed by anything - and as soon as he was accepted into class, he casually mentioned that Touya Akira had wanted to play him.

He considered himself Touya Akira's rival. That just wasn't DONE. Touya Akira was far, far above us.

His arrogance was astounding - especially considering that he could barely play. Most of us quickly dismissed him as a threat, and continued to focus on the ones we had already deemed the ones most likely to pass - Isumi, Waya, Ochi and Honda. That was a mistake.

Slowly, so that very few of us paid him serious attention, he inched up, and before we knew it, he was in first class - and his first game was against me.

Shindou's face was resolute as he took his place across from me, and I knew that I had to take this win. My record hadn't been the best lately, and I was in danger of slipping back into the second class, something which I would rather kill than allow to happen. I had two more years of high school, and my parents were starting to wonder if maybe Go wasn't the right choice for me.

I was, deep inside, becoming afraid.

Shindou was younger than I was, and burdened by none of those concerns. How different being fourteen was from being seventeen. I didn't pay much attention to him, though, aside from thinking on his exceptional ego, until he sat across the goban from me.

Shindou seemed a bit nervous as he took his seat, but as we were given the cue to begin, he straightened a bit, and his eyes grew resolute.

Pa-chi!

He moved with surety, and only later would I know that was the bell heralding the end of my Go career. I replied after a moment, and then we began to form the game.

Shindou's game was unlike anything I've ever seen as an insei. Some of his moves had incredible depth, while others were near-mistakes. He was strong, and as the seconds beat down on me, I felt sweat forming on the back of my neck. I should have won, after the two incredibly dumb mistakes he made, but I wasn't able to bring a strong attack to bear before he managed to recover.

"I resign," I said after nearly all my time was gone. It felt like chewing glass, but I didn't see how I could turn the game around. Shindou had me by about five moku, and he had more time left on the clock. I didn't want to end up playing byo-yomi, since I tended to fall apart when forced to play faster.

It was a weakness, I knew. I had a horrible tendency to psych myself out.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief, and a beatific smile sprung to life on his face. His eyes were alight with delight, and I knew that he was only going to get stronger. He had come into first class in a matter of months - there would be nothing stopping him.

Nase came up to me during lunch, handing me a can of my favorite tea. Her eyes were gentle as she looked at me. "You okay?" she asked.

I almost said I was fine, and brushed her off, but Nase deserved the truth. "He's good, Nase," I said. "He makes some dumb mistakes, but he's strong enough to make up for it."

"Fukui's level?" she asked.

"Around there," I agreed. "If he gets his head on straight. He keep glancing at his side, which was a bit rude... his focus needs work. He's going to get better."

"So will we!" she said with determination, and the light in her eyes said that nothing was going to stand in her way. I nodded, but inside I wondered if I hadn't already peaked. "Shindou's a bit obsessed with the Young Lion's Tournament at the moment, so I think that's where his determination is coming from."

"Young Lion's Tournament?" I echoed. "I haven't thought on that lately..."

"You need to. Only the top sixteen go." She spoke quietly, and I knew she was aware at how my rank had been dangerously wavering.

"We'll make it," I assured her. "We went last year."

"That's no guarantee."

No, it wasn't, I knew. There were no guarantees whatsoever when you were a Go player.

We both made it to the Young Lion Tournament, but it did me little good, because I managed to get knocked out in the first round to a low-level player who I knew most people considered mediocre. I knew I shouldn't have been bothered, but of course I was. It was my nature to be bothered by things.

Classes continued, and my ranking remained about the same. My game was getting better, but so was everyone's . The person who was rising was Shindou, and he rose with a speed, which while not unheard of, was certainly worth remarking on. There was something about him, something that made people step back and pay attention to him.

A part of me wondered if he hadn't been lying, when he claimed that he was Touya Akira's rival. And then the preliminaries for the Qualifiers came, and Shindou completely bombed, barely making it through.

I pointed out that the brightest stars often fall, burning out from blazing too brightly too soon. I thought he was finally self-destructing, but he managed to come through.

Nase asked me about that, wondering if he was a genius.

I wondered.

I wondered even more, when I was forced to face him at the first day of the Pro Exams. It was destined to be a repeat of the that day in first class, a weird form of deja vu.

There was a shift in his eyes, those green eyes which shift to a deep hazel as he stared at the board. His calm radiated from him, but I couldn't grasp it - and I wound myself up tighter, especially when I discovered he had studied with Isumi and Waya over the break.

The game wasn't masterful, but it was good. Maybe I can take some pride in the fact that I was his first stepping stone on the road to the pros. I had been wrong, to dismiss Nase's question if Shindou was a genius.

Shindou was a genius - and I was honored to be allowed to play him.

Though it didn't feel like it, then.

Those exams were torturous. I knew, deep inside my heart, that each game I played was one closer to my last as an insei... one closer to the end of my dream. For as Shindou rose, seemingly unstoppable, as Isumi and the others tumbled before him, so too did I fall.

I resign, his opponents would say to Shindou, the prodigy, and I would whisper it in my soul, knowing that it would be inevitable. I would resign myself to fate, resign myself to the fact that mediocre wouldn't be good enough, resign myself to the fact that Go wasn't in my future.

Thank you for the game, I could hear them telling me in return as they moved onto better opponents.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, arranging to see Shinoda. I'd lingered over the decision for a few months, but after my disappointing performance, I knew the time had come.

It was January when I finally lingered after class. Shinoda, who was always the last to leave, didn't seem surprised to see me kneeling in the room where he tested the insei. Instead, he merely settled across from me, and waited for what I had to say.

I looked at Shinoda, and spoke frankly, hoping that if I got the words out quickly, it wouldn't hurt. "When you filled positions at the insei test, you'll have to fill mine," I told him.

"Are you sure you want to do that, Iijima-kun?" His voice was quiet, and I saw the gentle concern in his face.

It hurt, it hurt more than I could bear to admit, but I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. "Shinoda-sensei, it's been fun, but I need to start studying for college and preparing for the rest of my life. I'm never going to pass the pro exam... so I need to make other plans."

He studied my face, and I saw the regret in his eyes before he offered me a bow of his head. "No, you won't," he said after a long moment, and even though I knew it was coming, my breath caught slightly. "Good luck, Iijima Ryu," he told me. "I hope you take the lessons you've learned here and carry them throughout your life."

I returned his bow. "I will," I promised. "It's been an honor to have you for a teacher."

He gave me one of those smiles which I had learned to expect from him over the years, the one he shared when he was about to say something profound. "It's been an honor having you as a student, Iijima-kun. Just remember, nothing we do in this life is ever wasted. There is always a reason behind every move that is played, and though we may not see the pattern that is evolving now, there is one."

I looked at him for a moment longer before I had to leave the room, unable to bear the gaze of his wise sight.

I didn't tell anyone for a while, wanting to enjoy my last few weeks as an insei. There was something comforting about being an insei, a security there. Knowing my record didn't matter anymore enabled me to relax, and for some reason I started to do even better. Maybe it was the lack of stress. I can carry a losing streak to previously unrecorded heights, because of how agitated I get - perhaps removing the agony of competition finally soothed something in me that let me play better than I ever had before.

Irony is life's most bitter spice.

The hardest thing, was telling Nase the truth, that I was through.

If there was one bond I was truly reluctant to break, it was my tie to her. She was a pretty girl, the kind I would never meet, had it not been for Go. I was more than half in love with her, and it would be bitter indeed not to have her in my life.

I told her in February and her response made me angry. She blew it off, and mentioned that she might quit herself - like all the years we put in had meant nothing.

The next week, she was gone from class, and Shinoda had no clue when I asked where she was. I didn't have the courage to call her - we never had spoken outside of Go - and so I had to wait until our next class to find out she'd just played hooky... for a date.

I'd never been so jealous.

She didn't even realize it. She didn't even seem to care that we would only have another month together before the courses of our lives would separate forever. I was proud that she was continuing, because while she was strong enough to play in the women's league already, it was her determination to be one of the few female players in the main league that I truly admired about her.

It hurt, to realize she didn't care enough about me to notice I would soon be gone. A small injury, on top of the massive wound I was about to sustain from cutting Go out of my life, but it bled, just the same.

How I misjudged her.

Two weeks into March, when the weather was starting to warm, she grabbed my hand when I was on the way out the door. Her fingers nipped into my skin, and I was forced to turn around, even though I was still bitter. "What do you want, Nase?"

"Are you doing anything right now?" she asked.

"Going home?"

She had laughed. "You're coming with me."

It was strange, to actually take the same train as her. My hands were hot and sweaty as she chatted about her school and how her mother was driving her crazy. She talked about spring, and other things which flowed through me, and I had no clue where we were heading.

After about ten stops, she yanked me to my feet, and I followed curiously, feeling a bit like Alice chasing the white rabbit.

I couldn't believe it when she led me to an adult playground. "Nase!" I protested, feeling a rise of panic. A rough crowd hung around these kind of places, and it was already heading for 6 p.m.

She grinned. "I have friends here!" she chirped cheerfully. "They're expecting me."

"Nase... this isn't terribly smart..." I began, but my stupid feet kept moving even as she led me into one of the shadiest Go parlors I've ever seen. We were the youngest there by at least ten years, and all my instincts screamed for me to grab Nase and high-tail it out of there.

The crowd, whose eyes swung around at the sound of the bell on the door, seemed to perk up at the sight of Nase. "Look, cutie's back!" one of them said happily. "Ieyesu, go get her a soda... Tomakazu, get out of that chair so she can sit there!" said the biggest one, who looked like he'd spent more than his fair share of time in fistfights.

His eyes shifted over to me. "Cutie, another boyfriend? Is this one gonna run?" he asked, and there was a hint of threat in his tone, directed at me, if I bothered Nase.

It came to me then that this was the Go parlor Nase had ended up in during her date. I almost strangled her for her sheer stupidity.

She, though, was answering him. "He's gonna play!" she said happily. "He's as good as I am!"

I gave her a dubiously look. Our levels were about even, but I wasn't sure it was such a good idea to beat them... they might beat back - physically. "Um, Nase..."

"It's okay, Iijima! This is fun!" she said, and grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a table.

To my surprise, we had a blast. The customers were a rough-and-tumble bunch, but completely enchanted with Nase, and willing to tolerate me because I was with her. We played for three hours, and then two of them escorted us back to the train station.

"Wasn't that fun?" she said happily. Her eyes were glowing.

I nodded. Most of the players had required handicaps, but the sheer love of the game had filled the room. "Yes. But... couldn't you have found a safer go parlor? One not in an adult playground?"

"It just kinda happened," she said, shrugging. "And I promised I'd go back, and I wanted to make sure you knew where it was, so we could meet there." Her eyes lowered. "I'm going to be studying Go a lot, and I need to stay serious about it, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun..."

"You... want to see me, after I'm gone?"

Her fingers laced through mine, and but she didn't look at my face as she spoke. "I can't imagine my life without you."

It wasn't a declaration of love, but of potential. I squeezed her hand in return, and we held hands for the ride home.

The last two weeks were the most bittersweet, those last four lessons. Nase and I spent as much time together as possible, but I knew that those games meant completely different things to us. I wasn't competing for rank anymore - she was. I was merely competing to find out where I would finish.

And in the end, I wound up retiring as ninth in the first class. I had moved up five ranks since my decision to quit Go. It was so tempting to renege, but I knew that I had burned that bridge, and there was no going back.

On that last day, I won both of my games. My final match as an insei was against Fukui - and I beat him.

"I resign," he told me.

"Thank you for the game."

I left the room before Nase could follow, wanting to be alone. I needed time to think, but someone intercepted me in the lobby downstairs.

"Iijima-kun?" I turned to see someone I recognized - Amano-san, from Weekly Go.

"Yes?" For my very life, I couldn't think what he would want. I was a nobody now, just a high school student with mediocre grades who was better than average at Go.

The man, overweight and courting cancer and heart disease with the cigar he was freely waving, gave me a warm smile. His eyes danced behind his glasses as he looked me up and down, before seeming to come to a decision. "I'm glad I caught you. It's your last day, isn't it?"

Why would that concern him? "Yes."

The smoke from his cigar, a intoxicating and fragrant mix of unusual herbs, wrapped around us. My nose twitched in irritation, but the manners which my parents had spent so long drilling into me kept me from dismissing him as rudely as I would have liked. I was bleeding, ripped opened from having to bid farewell to my unreachable dream, and not in any mood to deal with him. "I'll walk you to your station. There's something I want to talk to you about."

Through my haze of despair, I felt my curiosity twinge. I'd never had anything to do with the man before, and it was odd that he would be interested in me now that I would never be one of the players he would be covering. "Do as you like," I said brusquely.

He wasn't offended. "Did you know that Shinoda and I were insei together?" he asked.

"No, sir." I hadn't realized that Amano had ever been an insei at all.

"We were. We're still good friends - but there came a point when I reached a wall, when I knew that I would never become good enough to pass the final hurdle of the pro exams. So I quit, and it was the right choice for me - but it was the hardest thing I ever did. I sometimes wonder if I'd given up too soon, if I might have been able to break through if I had only tried a bit harder... intellectually, I know I lack that "certain something" pros have, but the heart doesn't always believe that."

His words echoed in me, as his situation sounded frighteningly familiar, but I didn't want to hear it. I clenched my fists, and concentrated on keeping my feet moving forward. "I don't need any sympathy, Amano-san. Or advise."

"I'm not offering it. What I want from you is something different." I paused, and he used my hesitation to rest a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Shinoda's had his eye on you, and he says that you love Go."

Yes, yes... and that was why it was so hard to leave. "Do you think this is easy?" I bit out.

"I know it isn't... and that's why I'm offering you an alternative."

My breath caught. "I'm not good enough..."

"To play professionally. No, you're not. But Shinoda says you're perceptive, and you understand what's going on around you. He says you're smart - and you love the game. You're a rare type, Iijima Ryu."

Tears started to burn at the back of my eyes, but I refused to shed them. "But I'm no Shindou Hikaru." Those losses against Shindou, which had flashed like a brilliant light the difference between "good" and "great."

Amano sighed. "In all my time, I've never seen anything like him - he's going to be a wonderful story to follow for me. Maybe for us?" His voice lilted upward in question.

It was a sign of how upset I was that I didn't catch onto what he was asking. "Amano-san..."

It's true, that when one door closes, another opens. We're never left in a dark room, all alone, because there's always someone waiting to turn the lights on for us - we just have to find that person. And as soon as Amano asked me his next question, I knew that the final stone in my fuseki had been placed at last, and my shape was as perfect as I could have wished.

"Have you ever considered a career in journalism?"

END


End file.
